Question Hard drive won't power on after wrong adapter

[jeremyschultz]

I have a Buffalo LinkStation 220 NAS hard drive that was powered down for a room painting and I just turned it on but accidentally with the adapter for a 3D printer. I switched to the correct one but it has not powered on at all since I started—no lights on front or back. I don't know if the adapter overloaded it; I didn't see any reaction when I turned it on. I know I gave it time to fully power down before unplugging it.

HD adapter: 12V-4A, 48W
Other adapter: 24V-7.5A, 180W

 

[ex_bubblehead]

You likely blew either one or more fuses in the drive enclosure or damaged the drive, enclosure and its electronics with the overvoltage. Hope you have a recent backup of the data, you're going to need it.

 

[USAFRet]

I have a Buffalo LinkStation 220 NAS hard drive that was powered down for a room painting and I just turned it on but accidentally with the adapter for a 3D printer. I switched to the correct one but it has not powered on at all since I started—no lights on front or back. I don't know if the adapter overloaded it; I didn't see any reaction when I turned it on. I know I gave it time to fully power down before unplugging it.

HD adapter: 12V-4A, 48W
Other adapter: 24V-7.5A, 180W

You probably cooked something.

It might be as simple as replacing a fuse.
Or could be worse.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Doubling the input voltage with the wrong power adapter likely fried the logic board in the NAS, or at the very least popped a fuse.

If you're not concerned about the data, get a new NAS.

If you need the data:
If you're lucky, power didn't get anywhere beyond the logic board and you can get another NAS and transfer the hard drives over to recover the data on them. However if the drives aren't recognized in another system, contact a data recovery specialist like drive savers. Mechanical hard drives generally contain over voltage protection built in (TVS Diode), so even if a higher voltage reached the drives, your data is likely (but not guaranteed) to still be there, so there's a decent chance of recovery.

 

[fzabkar]

If you can show me photos of the innards, I may be able to help you with a DIY repair.

 

[jeremyschultz]

I have a ticket open with Buffalo tech support to see what they say. The drive should be backed up but I'd rather access it here if I can. The price for data recovery is high ($1500–4K) so I'd go for a DIY solution if it has a chance.

 

[fzabkar]

contact a data recovery specialist like drive savers.

I can recommend reliable, competent data recovery companies for a fraction of what Drive Savers would charge. However, let's hope it doesn't get to that.